Share Your Home Electrification/Efficiency Improvements

[LeftieBiker]

I use several smaller fans (one on a timer, one on a thermostat) to help me get to sleep, and to stay in the temp range I can tolerate. They mix the air quite a bit, but that just seems to confuse the mini split. Still air over many hours is most likely to yield a stable room temp. Add to the mix our central A/C, which I've found I still need to control the humidity (the mini sucks badly at that) and I'm in the same boat as when I started - just with a much quieter system freezing me and soaking me with sweat...

Yes, I have tried closing the house air duct completely. I get 70+% humidity.

[Oilpan4]

It drops down around 0F here most years.
Last winter no 0F nights but winter started the 2nd week of October by plunging us into a week of +10F nights.
In 2010 when I first moved here we were slammed with about 8 days of -10F nights, then for the finally it hit -16F . I later found out excel was expecting the power grid to fail, to the point where they started calling in crews.

I'm going to keep burning wood.
At least I'm not a natural gas user for all my home heating.
No one cut down all the trees here. That's the dumbest thing I have heard in months.
High desert tends to not have many trees.
There are more trees here now because people plant them and bring water to the surface.
On the east coast I could drop a tree in the ground almost anywhere and it would grow just fine. Here I have to shield them from the wind, give them partial shade and water constantly in the summer. The sun, heat and wind are always trying to kill my new trees.

I have a 40 foot tall tree that I'm cutting down to make room for my solar panels. Then I'll cut it up and jam it in my coal furnace this winter. Millions of nearly free BTUs of concentrated solar energy, nutrients and water from the septic tank leech field.

[Oilpan4]

^^

It is you who do not understand how to use a heat pump efficiently and cheaply. The idea is to heat when the ambient air temperature is highest, and to keep the warmed up air in the home with a decent house envelope and HX for air quality.

I forgot you are the expert on everything.
So how do I use my heatpump efficiently when it's 5F out side at night and the heat pump compressor will not even come on?
You said I don't understand, so clearly you do. Why don't you impresse everyone with your heatpump expertise.

[Sayali]

Excellent Thread!!!

[LeftieBiker]

The above post looks suspiciously like pre-spam. I hope not.

[SageBrush]

^^

It is you who do not understand how to use a heat pump efficiently and cheaply. The idea is to heat when the ambient air temperature is highest, and to keep the warmed up air in the home with a decent house envelope and HX for air quality.

I forgot you are the expert on everything.

Compared to you, that is not saying much.

So how do I use my heatpump efficiently when it's 5F out side at night and the heat pump compressor will not even come on?

Read the quoted post. Again. And Again. And again. Eventually it might sink in.

[Oilpan4]

You sound exactly like a heat pump sales pamphlet.
Ambitious, nonspecific and completly useless.

[Zythryn]

You sound exactly like a heat pump sales pamphlet.
Ambitious, nonspecific and completly useless.

Heat pumps are getting better and better. However, ground source heat pumps work far better.
It isn’t always possible to retrofit a good GSHP system. But if it is built into the house from the start, it has very good results.

Our winters are a bit colder than yours. 10 below is not unusual and 20-30 below is not unheard of.
We have no wood stove, no natural gas, our heat is solely from the heat pump and resistance heat as a backup (which hasn’t been used so far).

In the event of a grid outage we have solar panels and batteries.

The trick with our house is it is extremely well insulated with as few “holes” in it as possible. No chimney, no exhaust for the clothes dryer, and all bath fans go through the ERV ventilation system to recover the heat before it is expelled.

Combined with a lot of thermal mass and using passive solar it is extremely efficient. We calculated we needed 19kW of solar to cover our annual energy needs (house and two cars). Turns out we needed about 11kW.

[SageBrush]

We calculated we needed 19kW of solar to cover our annual energy needs (house and two cars). Turns out we needed about 11kW.

.
This is a part of your story I am not familiar with. Please tell more !

[iPlug]

Always inspirational to follow what Zythryn is up to.

We looked into upgrading to a GSHP system, but was cost prohibitive for our existing home which would have required excavating already poured concrete, drilling deep vertical wells through a couple hundred feet of tough basalt, then re-pouring concrete. Would love to go this route in a future home if can get it done with new construction.

Good to have such an example from one of the most frigid climates in the continental US, showing heat pump tech is demonstrably effective and efficient. Certainly GSHP becomes more advantageous in more northern latitudes.

Since so much of a home's energy use in the U.S. comes from heating (more than cooling in most places), U.S. residents will have to ultimately ditch fossil fuels for heating in the near future if we hope to do our part in substantially mitigating climate change.

Over the last 12 months we have used about 14 MWh of electricity for our family of 4 in our 2550 ft^2 house. That includes all heat pump heating and cooling of air, heat pump heated water, both electric vehicles, induction stove, standard electric appliances including resistance heat clothes dryer, and pool pump. We might run the spa a bunch in the next 1.5 months before our annual true-up to use a bit of our ~2 MWh net excess generated electricity.